Bram Stoker: history, psychoanalysis, and the Gothic

Abstract

Bram Stoker is best remembered today as the author of Dracula. However, this Dublin-born Anglo-Irishman combined a writing career which produced eleven novels and a wealth of short stories, biography and journalism, with a full-time occupation as a theatre manager and society figure in fin de siecle London.
This volume testifies to the breadth and diversity of Stoker's writings and interests, and reassesses the significant contribution which the author made to the Gothic tradition. Its Introduction analyses the reasons behind Stoker's exclusion from the literary canon through an exploration of the changes in critical and cultural studies in the late twentieth century. The twelve critical essays which follow, each written by an acknowledged expert in the field, demonstrate a variety of critical approaches to Stoker and to the ideas and problems presented by his writings before and after Dracula.